Richard Whittall:

The Globalist's Top Ten Books in 2016: The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer

Middle East Eye: "

The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer is one of the weightiest, most revelatory, original and important books written about sport"

“The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer has helped me immensely with great information and perspective.”

Bob Bradley, former US and Egyptian national coach: "James Dorsey’s The Turbulent World of Middle Eastern Soccer (has) become a reference point for those seeking the latest information as well as looking at the broader picture."

Alon Raab in The International Journal of the History of Sport: “Dorsey’s blog is a goldmine of information.”

Play the Game: "Your expertise is clearly superior when it comes to Middle Eastern soccer."

Andrew Das, The New York Times soccer blog Goal: "No one is better at this kind of work than James Dorsey"

David Zirin, Sports Illustrated: "Essential Reading"

Change FIFA: "A fantastic new blog'

Richard Whitall of A More Splendid Life:

"James combines his intimate knowledge of the region with a great passion for soccer"

Christopher Ahl, Play the Game: "An excellent Middle East Football blog"

James Corbett, Inside World Football

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Troubled ports in Pakistan and Sri Lanka, envisioned as part
of China’s string of pearls linking the Eurasian heartland to the Middle
Kingdom, exemplify political pitfalls that threaten Beijing’s ambitious One
Belt, One Road project.

Political violence over the past decade has stopped
Pakistan’s Gwadar port from emerging as a major trans-shipment hub in Chinese
trade and energy supplies while turmoil in Sri Lanka threatens to dissuade
Chinese investors from sinking billions into the country’s struggling
Hambantota port and planned economic hub.

The problems of the two ports serve as pointers to simmering
discontent and potential resistance to China’s ploy for dominance through
cross-continental infrastructure linkage across a swath of land that is restive
and ripe for political change.

Chinese,
Pakistani and Russian officials warned in December that militant groups in
Afghanistan, including the Islamic State (IS) had stepped up operations in
Afghanistan. IS in cooperation with the Pakistani Taliban launched two months
later a
wave of attacks that has targeted government, law enforcement, the military
and minorities and has killed hundreds of people.

China is investing $51 billion in Pakistan infrastructure
and energy, including Gwadar port in the troubled province of Balochistan that
is struggling to attract business nine years after it was initially inaugurated.
The government announced this week that it had deployed 15,000 troops to protect China’s
investment in Pakistan, a massive project dubbed the China-Pakistan Economic
Corridor (CPEC).

For Gwadar to become truly viable, Pakistan will have to not
only address Baluch grievances that have prompted militancy and calls for
greater self-rule, if not independence, but also ensure that Baluchistan does
not become a playground in the bitter struggle for regional hegemony between
Saudi Arabia and Iran.

To do so, Pakistan will have to either crackdown on militant
Afghan groups with the Taliban in the lead who operate with official acquiescence
out of the Baluch capital of Quetta or successfully facilitate an end to
conflict in Afghanistan itself.

That is a tall order which in effect would require changes in
longstanding Pakistani policies. Gwadar’s record so far bears this out. Phase
II of Gwadar was completed in 2008, yet few ships anchor there and little
freight is handled.

Success would also require a break with long-standing Chinese
foreign and defence policy that propagates non-interference in the domestic
affairs of other countries. China has pledged $70 million in military aid to
Afghanistan, is training its police force, and has proposed
a four-nation security bloc that would include Pakistan, Afghanistan and
Tajikistan.

A mere 70 kilometres further west of Gwadar lies Iran’s
southernmost port city of Chabahar that has become the focal point of Indian
efforts to circumvent Pakistan in its access to energy-rich Central Asia and
serve as India’s Eurasian hub by linking it to a north-south corridor that
would connect Iran and Russia. Investment in Chabahar is turning it into Iran’s
major deep water port outside the Strait of Hormuz that is populated by Gulf
states hostile to the Islamic republic. Chabahar would also allow Afghanistan
to break Pakistan’s regional maritime monopoly.

Former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa warned
Chinese officials in December that public protests would erupt if plans proceeded
to build in Hambantota a 6,000-hectare economic zone that would buffet a $1.5
billion-deep sea port, a $209-million international airport, a world-class
cricket stadium, a convention centre, and new roads. Protests
a month later against the zone turned violent. Similar protests against Chinese
investment have also erupted in recent years in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and
Tajikistan.

In Sri Lanka, the government has delayed the signing of agreements
with China on the port and the economic zone after the protests catapulted the
controversy onto the national agenda with opposition politicians and trade
unions railing against them. A Sri Lankan opposition member of parliament
moreover initiated legal proceedings to stop a debt-for-equity deal with China.

“The Hambantota fiasco is sending a clear message to
Beijing: showing up with bags of money alone is not enough to win a new Silk
Road,” commented Wade
Shepard, author of a forthcoming book on China’s One Belt, One Road
initiative.

Adding to China’s problems is its apparent willingness to at
times persuade its partners to circumvent or flout international standards of
doing business. A European
Union investigation into a Chinese-funded $2.9 billion rail link between
the Hungarian capital of Budapest and Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, could
punch a hole into Chinese plans to extend its planned Asian transportation
network into Europe. The investigation is looking at whether the deal seemingly
granted to Chinese companies violated EU laws stipulating that contracts for
large transportation projects must be awarded through public tenders.

The sum total of problems China is encountering across Eurasia
highlight a disconnect between grandiose promises of development and improved
standards of living and the core of Chinese policy: an insistence that
economics offer solutions to deep-seated conflicts, local aspirations, and a narrowing
of the gap between often mutually exclusive worldviews. It also suggests that
China believes that it can bend, if not rewrite rules, when it serves its
purpose.

To be sure, protests in Sri Lanka and Central Asia are as
much about China as they are expressions of domestic political rivalries that
at times are fought at China’s expense. Even so, they suggest that for China to
succeed, it will not only have to engage with local populations, but also
become a player rather than position itself as an economic sugar daddy that
hides behind the principle of non-interference and a flawed economic win-win
proposition.

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Controversy and uncertainty over the possible appointment of
a Pakistani general as commander of a 40-nation, Saudi-led, anti-Iranian military
alliance dubbed the Muslim world’s NATO goes to the core of a struggle for
Pakistan’s soul as the country reels from a week of stepped up political
violence.

It also constitutes a defining moment in Saudi relations with
Pakistan, historically one of the Gulf state’s staunchest allies and a country
where the kingdom is as much part of the problem as it is part of the solution.
Finally, whether the general accepts the post or not is likely to be a
bellwether of the Muslim world’s ability to free itself of the devastating impact
of Saudi-like Sunni ultra-conservatism and bridge rather than exasperate
sectarian divides.

Retired Pakistani military chief of staff General Raheel
Sharif’s acceptance of the command of the alliance, the Islamic Military
Alliance to Fight Terrorism, would kill several birds with one stone. The
alliance, created in 2015 to bolster Saudi Arabia’s two-year old, flailing
intervention in Yemen and counter Iran, has so far largely been a paper tiger.

The alliance has staged military exercises that appeared to
target Iran but has not yet established a joint command or command
infrastructure. The appointment of General Shareef could potentially help the
alliance evolve into a force that is credible, assuming that he can overcome
widespread hesitancy towards it across the Muslim world.

In personal terms, the appointment would award Mr. Sharif
for opposing the Pakistani parliament rejection in 2015 of a Saudi request for
military support in Yemen.

The appointment of General Sharif would have also been a
favour to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, a politician and businessman with close
ties to the kingdom who like the general favoured Pakistani military support in
Yemen. It would remove the popular general as a potential political rival of
the prime minister. Namesakes, Messrs Sharif are not related to one another.

The uncertainty about General Raheel’s appointment that has
been lingering since it was first announced two months ago, and then been
called into question is indicative of strains in relations between Saudi Arabia
and Pakistan, once the closest of nations in the Muslim world.

Abdullah Ghulzar Khan, a Pakistani national who lived in
Saudi Arabia for 12 years, last year
blew himself up in a parking lot near the US consulate in the Red Sea port
of Jeddah. Fifteen Pakistanis have since been arrested on suspicion of being
militants. Two of them were believed to be part of a plot to attack
the city’s Al-Jawhara Stadium with a truck carrying 400 kg of explosives
during a Saudi Arabia-UAE soccer match that was attended by 60,000 spectators.

The arrests like the story of Tashfeen Malik, the Pakistani
woman who together with her American-Pakistani husband, gunned down 14 people
in San Bernardino, California, in December 2015, tell a much bigger tale about
the risks inherent in Saudi backing at home and abroad, including Pakistan, of
puritan, supremacist interpretations of Islam.

Ms. Malik moved with her parents to Saudi Arabia when she
was a toddler to escape sectarian skirmishes and family disputes. In the
kingdom, the family turned its back on its Sufi and Barelvi traditions that
included visiting shrines, honouring saints and enjoying Sufi trance music,
practices rejected by the kingdom's austere Wahhabi form of Islam‎.
The change sparked tensions with relatives in Pakistan, whom the Maliks accused
in Wahhabi fashion of rejecting the oneness of God by revering saints.

Ms. Malik turned even more conservative when she returned to
Pakistan in 2009 to study pharmacology. She started attending religion classes
at a branch of Al-Huda (The Correct Path) International Welfare Foundation, a
controversial academy that has made significant inroads into Pakistan’s upper
and middle classes, and propagates an ideology akin to that of Saudi Arabia.

In a statement
after the San Bernardino attack, Al Huda described itself as “a non-political,
non-sectarian and non-profit organisation which is tirelessly serving humanity
by promoting education along with numerous welfare programmes for the needy and
destitute.” It said that it “does not have links to any extremist regime and
stands to promote peaceful message of Islam and denounces extremism, violence
and terrorism of all kinds.” The institution said that it could not be held
responsible for “personal acts “of its students.

To be sure, Al Huda like Sunni ultra-conservatism in its
various guises does not breed violence by definition. Yet, like any inward-looking,
intolerant and supremacist ideology it creates potential breeding grounds in a
given set of circumstances. Similarly, as in the case of the Islamic State (IS)
or Al Qaeda, the shared basic tenets of ultra-conservatism has lead to the
formation of groups that have turned on Saudi Arabia itself.

A newly formed alliance of IS and Pakistani Taliban that
strives to impose strict Islamic law was responsible for the series of attacks
in the last week that killed 83 people at a Sufi shrine in southern Punjab and targeted
the Punjabi parliament, military outposts, a Samaa TV crew, and a provincial
police station.

Complicating Pakistan’s struggle with militancy is the fact
that massive, decades-long backing of ultra-conservativism by successive
Pakistani political, military and intelligence leaders and Saudi Arabia has
made it part of the fabric of significant segments of Pakistani society and
education as well as key branches of the government and arms of the state.

That coupled with geopolitics and Pakistan’s increasingly
troubled relationship with its religious and ethnic minorities is precisely
what makes the proposed appointment of General Raheel so problematic.

Pakistan, a country with a long border with Iran and the world’s
largest Shiite minority, has long been a major frontline in Saudi Arabia’s
almost four-decade long covert proxy war with the Islamic republic, dating back
to the 1979 Islamic revolution. Saudi Arabia, in cooperation with the Pakistani
military and intelligence as well as senior government officials, has long
backed militant sectarian groups that have helped push Pakistan towards Sunni ultra-conservatism
and are responsible for a large number of deaths among Shiites, Ahmadis, Sufis
and others.

General Raheel’s appointment would bring the chicken home to
roost. By taking the command, General Raheel would give the alliance the
credibility it needs: a non-Arab
commander from one of the world’s most populous Muslim countries who commanded
not only one of the Muslim world’s largest militaries, but also one that
possesses nuclear weapons. The appointment would build on decades of Pakistani
military support of Saudi Arabia dating back to war in Yemen in the late 1960s.

Yet, accepting the command would put Pakistan more firmly
than ever in the camp of Saudi-led confrontation with Iran that Saudi political
and religious leaders as well as their militant Pakistani allies often frame
not only in geopolitical but also sectarian terms. Ultimately, it was that step
that the Pakistani parliament rejected in 2015 when it refused to send troops
to Yemen. Acceptance of the command by General Raheel would fly in the face of
parliament’s decision.

Pakistani Shiite leaders as well as some Sunni politicians
have warned that General Raheel’s appointment would put an end to Pakistan’s
ability to walk a fine line between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

It could raise the
stakes in Balochistan, the province bordering Iran where separatists are
agitating for independence and China has invested billions of dollars as part
of its One Belt, One Road initiative.

Pakistani news
reports suggest that General Raheel has sought to alleviate the risk by
setting conditions that are unlikely to be acceptable to Saudi Arabia,
including that Iran be invited to join the alliance and that he be the mediator
in disputes among alliance members with no need to report to a higher i.e.
Saudi authority. Iran reportedly advised Pakistan that it would work with
General Raheel if he took the command to reach a negotiated resolution of the
Yemen war.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir, in a speech
last weekend to the Munich Security Conference, laid out a vision that rules out
General Raheel’s thinking. “Iran remains the biggest state sponsor of terrorism
in the world. Iran has as part of its constitution the principle of exporting
the revolution. Iran does not believe in the principle of citizenship. It
believes that the Shiite, the ‘dispossessed’, as Iran calls them, all belong to
Iran and not to their countries of origin. And this is unacceptable for us

in
the kingdom, for our allies in the Gulf and for any country in the world… So,
until and unless Iran changes its behaviour, and changes its outlook, and
changes the principles upon which the Iranian state is based, it will be very
difficult to deal with a country like this.,” Mr. Al-Jubeir said.

Sunday, February 19, 2017

Iran, bowing to external pressure, has allowed women
spectators to attend a premier international men’s volleyball tournament on the
island of Kish. The Iranian concession constitutes a rare occasion on which the
Islamic republic has not backtracked on promises to international sports
associations to lift its ban on women attending men’s sporting events. Human
rights groups hailed the move as a positive, albeit small step forward.

The Iranian concession appeared to contradict Iranian
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s hard line towards international
pressure in the wake of renewed sanctions imposed by US President Donald J.
Trump. “Everybody has tested Iran over the past 38 years and they all know that
Iran is hardly moved by threats. We do not respond very well to threats. We
respond very well to respect and mutual respect and mutual interest,” Mr. Zarif
told
CNN’s Christian Amanpour this weekend on the side lines of the Munich
Security Conference.

In contrast to Mr. Zarif’s assertion, the Iranian concession
followed a decision by the Federation Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) to
dump its quiet diplomacy approach towards Iran and revert to public pressure. The
FIVB threatened
on the eve of the Kish tournament to suspend the event if Iran failed to grant
women spectators access. Iran alongside Saudi Arabia is the only country that
bars women spectators from attending men’s sporting events.

"From now on women can watch beach volleyball matches
in Kish if they observe Islamic rules," said
Kasra Ghafouri, acting director of Iran's Beach Volleyball Organisation.

The FIVB has flip flopped in its attitude towards Iran. The
group initially took a lead among international sports associations in publicly
declaring that it would not grant Iran hosting rights as long as women were not
given unfettered access to stadia. In response, Iran promised to allow women to
attend international volleyball tournaments in the Islamic republic. Taking
Iranian authorities by their word, women travelled last year to Kish for the
2016 tournament only to discover that Iran would not make good on its promise.

Rather than demonstrating sincerity by following through on
its threat, the FIVB said it would not sanction the Islamic republic because gender
segregation was culturally so deep-seated that a boycott would not produce
results. Instead, the federation argued that engagement held out more promise.

The decision flew in the face of the facts. Gender segregation in volleyball in
Iran was only introduced in 2012, 33 years after Islamic revolutionaries
toppled the Shah. Senior volleyball executives said at the time that the FIVB
feared that a boycott would put significant revenues at risk.

The FIVB’s change of attitude was seemingly
backed by the United States. The US Volleyball Federation on the informal
advice of the State Department decided at the time not to send its woman
president to Iran when the US national team played there even though the vice
president of Iran is a woman and Iranian sports associations have women’s
sections that are headed by women.

Ultimately, quiet diplomacy did not pan out, prompting the
FIVB to return to a proven tactic, the very threats that Mr. Zarif asserted
would not work. Mr. Ghafouri referred in his statement exclusively to Kish, a resort
island and free trade zone in the Gulf far from the Iranian heartland known for
its somewhat more relaxed enforcement of strict Islamic mores. The litmus test
for both Iran and the FIVB’s sincerity in ensuring women spectators’ access to
international volleyball events is likely to be this June’s FIVB
Volleyball World League in the capital Tehran.

The FIVB’s success in ensuring women’s access to the Kish
tournament is remarkable given that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is locked
into a tough battle in advance of presidential elections in May that could make
him the first Iranian head of state not to serve a second term in more than
three decades. Many Iranians are disappointed that Iran’s nuclear agreement
that lifted crippling international sanctions and was championed by Mr. Rouhani
has failed to meet popular expectations of a swift trickledown effect.

Mr. Rouhani is embroiled in a power struggle with powerful
domestic forces like the Revolutionary Guards eager to ensure that Iran’s
return to the international fold does not affect their vested interests. Women’s
sporting rights do not figure high on Mr. Rouhani’s agenda in this struggle
against the backdrop of Mr. Trump has calling the nuclear agreement into
question.

Moreover, in contrast to soccer, volleyball has been largely
a battle between an international sporting association and Iranian authorities rather
than a struggle by Iranian women. British-Iranian national and law student Ghoncheh
Ghavami became the exception when she and several others attempted in June
2014 to attend a Volleyball World League match at Tehran’s Azadi Stadium. Ms.
Ghavami was charged with “propaganda against the state,” and held in Iran’s
notorious Evin Prison for months.

Iranian women disguised as boys or men have, however,
repeatedly over the years sought to enter Azadi Stadium, during soccer matches,
Iran’s most popular sport. An attempt
by eight women wearing men’s clothes, short hair and hats was foiled last
month when they were arrested at the entrance to the stadium.

A BBC
Persian reporter, one of the few Iranian women to have ever officially
attended a post-revolution soccer match in Azadi Stadium, recently countered
with her own experience Iranian justification of the ban on the grounds that it
was designed to shield women from men’s rowdiness in sport stadia and to
pre-empt the temptation of genders mixing.

In the stadium as a translator for a television crew during
a 2006 World Cup qualifier, men wildly celebrating Iran’s victory made a path
for her as she struggled to make her way through a crowd to a news conference. “They
behaved much better, contrary to what the authorities think. If we have women
in stadiums, men will behave much better,” the reporter said.

Friday, February 17, 2017

This week’s suicide bombing of a popular Sufi shrine is the
latest operation of a recently formed alliance of militant jihadist and
sectarian groups that includes the Islamic State (IS) and organizations associated
with the Pakistani Taliban, according to Pakistani counterterrorism officials.

The bombing of the shrine of Sufi saint Lal Shahbaz Qalandar
in the southern Pakistani town of Sehwan in Sindh province by a female suicide
bomber that killed 83 people, including 20 children, was the alliance’s 9th
attack this week. The grouping earlier this week targeted the Punjabi
parliament, military outposts, a Samaa TV crew, and a provincial police
station.

The alliance represents a joining of forces by Pakistani and
Afghan jihadists and groups who trace their origins to sectarian organizations that
have deep social roots. The alliance’s declared aim is to challenge the state
at a time that Pakistan is under external pressure to clean-up its
counterterrorism act. A recent Pakistani crackdown on militants has been
selective, half-hearted, and largely ineffective.

The Pakistani military and foreign office this week twice
summoned Afghan embassy officials in response to the campaign of violence to
protest the alleged use of Afghan territory for attacks in Pakistan and demand
that Afghanistan either act against 76 militants identified by Pakistani
intelligence or hand them over to Pakistani authorities. Punjab Chief Minister
Shahbaz Sharif asserted that the attack on parliament had been planned in
Afghanistan.

Pakistan on Friday closed its border with Afghanistan.
Pakistani forces also launched a nation-wide sweep in search of members of the
alliance in which as of this writing some 100 people were killed.

Counterterrorism officials said the alliance of eight
organizations formed late last year included IS, the Pakistani Taliban and some
of its associates, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Alami (LJA), Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), and
Jundallah.

Members of the alliance have demonstrated their ability to
wreak havoc long before they decided to join forces.

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar claimed responsibility for a December 2014
attack on a public military school in which 141 people, including 132 school
children, were killed. The attack sparked public outrage and forced the
government to announce a national action plan to crack down on militants and
political violence. The plan has so far proven to be a paper tiger.

LJA and IS said they carried out an attack last October on a
police academy in Quetta that left 62 cadets dead. In August, JuA wiped out a
generation of Baluch lawyers who had gathered at a hospital in Quetta to mourn
the killing of a colleague, the second one to be assassinated in a week.

The bombings and killings did little to persuade Pakistan’s
security establishment that long-standing military and intelligence support for
groups that did the country’s geopolitical bidding in Kashmir and Afghanistan
as well as for sectarian and ultra-conservative organizations and religious
schools that often also benefitted from Saudi funding was backfiring. The
support has allowed some of these groups to garner popular support and make
significant inroads into branches of the state.

“The enemy within is not a fringe... Large sections of
society sympathize with these groups. They fund them, directly and indirectly.
They provide them recruits. They reject the Constitution and the system. They
don’t just live in the ‘bad lands’ but could be our neighbours. The forces have
not only to operate in areas in the periphery, along the Pakistan-Afghanistan
border, but have also to operate in the cities where hundreds, perhaps
thousands form sleeper cells, awaiting orders or planning to strike,” said
Pakistani columnist Ejaz Haider in a commentary.

Credible Pakistani media reports, denied by the government
as well as the military, said that the attacks had brought out sharp
differences between various branches of government and the state over attitudes
towards the militants during a meeting last year of civilian, military and
intelligence leaders. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Foreign Minister were
reported to have told military and intelligence commanders that Pakistan risked
international isolation because of its failure to enforce the national action
plan.

JuA last month announced the alliance’s challenging of the
state with its declaration of Operation Ghazi, named after Maulana Abdul Rashid
Ghazi, a leader of Islamabad’s controversial Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, widely
viewed as jihadist nerve centre, who was killed in clashes in 2007 with the
military. The group said the alliance would target provincial parliaments;
security forces, including the military, intelligence and the police; financial
institutions; non-Islamic political parties; media; co-ed educational
institutions; Shiites and Ahmadis, a group widely viewed by conservative
Muslims as heretics that have been declared non-Muslims in Pakistan’s
constitution.

There is little indication that the formation of the
alliance and the launch of its violent campaign will spark a fundamental
re-think of its longstanding differentiation between militant groups that do
its geopolitical bidding in Afghanistan and Kashmir and those that target the
Pakistani state.

Pakistan’s refusal despite the crackdown in the wake of the
most recent attacks to put an end to its selective countering of political
violence was evident in an earlier crackdown on groups that are believed to
have close ties to the security establishment.

Pakistan, in a bid to prevent a possible inclusion of
Pakistan in a re-working by President Donald J. Trump of his troubled ban on
travel to the United States from violence-prone Muslim countries with active
jihadist groups and pre-empt sanctions by a Bangkok-based Asian money laundering
watchdog, last month put leaders of another internationally designated group
under house arrest. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global inter-governmental
body that combats money laundering and funding of political violence is
expected to discuss Pakistan in the coming days at a meeting in Paris.

The government, in addition to treating the leaders of
Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), widely seen as a front for Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, with kid’s
gloves rather than putting them in prison, has so far remained silent about the
group’s intention to resume operations under a new name. The government has
also said nothing about the group’s plans to register itself as a political
party.

Analysts with close ties to the military have argued that
simply banning JuD and seizing its assets would not solve the problem because
of the group’s widespread popular support. Some analysts draw a comparison to
militant Islamist groups in the Middle East such as the Muslim Brotherhood and
Hezbollah in Lebanon that have garnered popular support by functioning both as
political parties and social service organizations.

“Ensuring that such groups disavow violence and have a path
towards participation in a pluralistic, competitive political environment is
more likely to offer the prospect of greater stability. That may work for some
groups like JuD but not for those responsible for this week’s wave of
indiscriminate killing,” one analyst said.

Thursday, February 16, 2017

A militant faction associated with the Pakistani Taliban has
put Pakistani authorities, already under pressure from the United States and an
Asian money laundering watchdog, at a crossroads in their hitherto half-hearted
efforts to crack down on violent groups, some of which maintain close ties to
Pakistani intelligence and the military.

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar earlier this week fired its first shots in a
new offensive that aims at Pakistan government, military and civilian targets
with a suicide attack on the Punjabi parliament. Fifteen people were killed in
the attack. The group also attacked three military outposts in the Pakistani
tribal agency of Mohmand.

The offensive dubbed Operation Ghazi came as Pakistan sought
to fend off potential steps against Pakistan, including inclusion on a possible
revision of President Donald J. Trump’s embattled list of countries whose
nationals are temporarily banned from travel to the United States, and punitive
steps by the Bangkok-based Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG). APG
has been looking into Pakistani financial transaction of internationally banned
groups that continue to operate with Pakistani acquiescence.

The attack sparked public outrage and forced the government
to announce a national action
plan to crack down on militants and political violence. The plan has
largely proven to be a paper tiger.

With its announcement on February 10 of Operation Ghazi and
this month’s attacks, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar could force Pakistan’s government and
security establishment to again review its counterterrorism strategy,
employment of militant proxies in Kashmir and Afghanistan, and implementation
of the action plan. The operation was named after Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi, a
leader of Islamabad’s Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, who was killed in clashes in
2007 with the military.

While any review is likely to amount in the short term to
finetuning rather than a fundamental revision of Pakistani policies, it would
probably nudge Pakistan one step closer to realizing that its strategy is
backfiring and increasingly proving too costly. Pakistan has long denied
supporting militant groups and has repeatedly charged that Jamaat-ul-Ahrar was
a creation of Indian intelligence.

Pakistan last month put one of the world’s most wanted men, Hafez
Muhammad Saeed, a leader of the banned group Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) and its
alleged front, Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), under house
arrest. Although internationally listed as a globally designated terrorist,
Mr. Saeed was restricted in his freedom of movement rather than incarcerated
while his movement has started operations under a new name, Tehrik-e-Azadi
Jammu o Kashmir.

Earlier, Pakistan’s State Bank, the country’s monetary
authority announced the freezing of accounts of 2,000 militants that militants
and analysts said did not hold the bulk of the militants’ assets.

Projecting himself as
a key figure in radical Islamist opposition to the state, Maulana Mohammad
Abdul Aziz, the brother of Mr. Ghazi and current head of the Red Mosque, a
notorious militant nerve centre, spelled out the philosophy of the militants in
a recent interview. Sporting a white wild growth beard as he sat cross-legged
on a mattress on the floor of a booklined room in a rundown compound that houses
the mosque’s seminary, Mr. Abdul Aziz rejected the Pakistani government’s
authority.

“These corrupt rulers are not fit to rule. They don’t have
moral authority. They live in wealth while the people live in abject poverty.
If the state is not within the boundaries of the Qur’an and the Sunnah, we have
no right to recognize its authority. Pakistan is not a Muslim country. We still
have the law of the colonial power. We disagree with those who believe in
democracy,” Mr. Abdul Aziz said with a mischievous smile and a twinkle in his
eye.

The International Crisis Group warned in a just
released report that “ethno-political and sectarian interests and
competition, intensified by internal migration, jihadist influx and unchecked
movement of weapons, drugs and black money, have created an explosive mix” in Karachi,
Pakistan’s largest city. The report said the city was a pressure cooker as a
result of a failure of government policy, lack of action against militant and
criminal groups, and “a heavy-handed, politicised crackdown by paramilitary
Rangers.”

The report noted that “anti-India outfits like the
Lashkar-e-Tayyaba/Jamaat-ud-Dawa (LeT/JD) and Jaish-e-Mohammed continue to
operate madrasas and charity fronts with scant reaction from the Rangers or
police.”

The ICG called on federal and local government to “replace
selective counter-terrorism with an approach that targets jihadist groups using
violence within or from Pakistani territory; regulate the madrasa sector; and
act comprehensively against those with jihadist links.”

Pakistan has a vast number of uncontrolled madrassas or
religious seminaries that are run by militant groups, many with close ties to
Saudi Arabia’s ultra-conservative religious establishment, that teach an
intolerant, supremacist, often sectarian interpretation of Islam. Complicating
any government effort to supervise madrassas, is the fact that the government
has no reliable data on how many seminaries exist.

A military campaign in 2009 against the Pakistani Taliban in
the country’s tribal areas prompted the group to set up shop in Karachi. Its
estimated 8,000 operatives in the city heightened tension and increased levels
of violence.

“Karachi thus changed from a city in which jihadist
combatants mainly rested and recuperated from fighting elsewhere to one that
also generated vital funding. TTP (Pakistani Taliban)-run extortion rackets,
for instance, targeted marble factory owners in strongholds such as Manghopir,
while kidnapping for ransom and robberies generated additional revenue. The
police were regularly attacked, bans were enforced on ‘immoral activities’ and ‘peace
committees’ (mobile courts and jirgas – councils of elders) were established to
win over constituents and consolidate local authority,” the ICG report said.

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

A Saudi decision to license within weeks the kingdom’s first
women-only gyms constitutes progress in a country in which women’s rights are
severely curtailed. It also lays bare the limitations of Deputy Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman’s plan for social and economic reforms that would rationalize
and diversify the kingdom’s economy.

Restrictions on what activities the gyms will be allowed to
offer reflects the power of an ultra-conservative religious establishment and
segment of society critical of the long overdue reforms that became inevitable as
a result of sharply reduced oil revenues and the need to enhance Saudi
competitivity in a 21st knowledge-driven global economy.

At least two years in the making, the licensing rules announced
by Princess Reema bin Bandar, vice president for women’s affairs of the General
Authority of Sports, the kingdom’s sports czar, focus on Prince Mohammed’s plans
laid out in a document entitled Vision
2030. The plans involve streamlining government expenditure, including public
health costs in a country that boasts one of the world’s highest rates of
obesity and diabetes.

“It is not my role to convince the society, but my role is
limited to opening the doors for our girls to live a healthy lifestyle away
from diseases that result from obesity and lack of movement,” Princess Reema
said in announcing the licensing.

Princess Reema, the kingdom’s first ever women’s sports
official, hopes to open gyms in every district and neighbourhood in the kingdom.
The move constitutes progress in a country that has yet to introduce sports in
public girl’s schools and has no public facilities for women’s sports.

Commercially run gyms catering primarily to upper and upper
middle class women as well as privately organized women’s sports teams have
been operating in the kingdom in a legal nether land for several years.

Princess Reema indicated that gyms would be licensed to
focus on activities such as swimming, running and bodybuilding but not for
sports such as soccer volleyball, basketball and tennis.

The licensing rules are in line with a
policy articulated in 2014 by Mohammed al-Mishal, the secretary-general of
Saudi Arabia's Olympic Committee. At the time, Mr. Al-Mishal, responding to
pressure by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), said women would only be
allowed to compete in disciplines that were "accepted culturally and
religiously in Saudi Arabia" and conform to a literal interpretation of
the Qur’an. Mr. Al-Mishal identified such sports as equestrian, fencing,
shooting, and archery.

They are also in line with unrealistic hopes abandoned
several years ago to emphasize individual rather than team sports in a men’s
only national sports plan. The idea to de-emphasize team sports was intended to
limit the potential of soccer becoming a venue of anti-government protest as it
had in Egypt and elsewhere during the 2011 popular Arab revolts. It proved
unrealistic given that Saudi Arabia, like most nations in the region, is
soccer-crazy. Saudi Arabia announced earlier this month that it would privatize
five of the kingdom’s top soccer clubs.

Women’s sports is one litmus test of Saudi Arabia’s ability
to tackle its social, political and economic challenges head on and move
forward with Prince Mohammed’s outline of how the government hopes to diversify
the economy, streamline its bloated bureaucracy and safeguard the Al Saud’s
grip on power.

Vision 2030 identifies sports “as a mainstay of a healthy
and balanced lifestyle and promises “to encourage widespread and regular
participation in sports and athletic activities.”

The licensing of women’s gyms is occurring even though
Vision 2030 made no reference to facilities for women. The document also failed
to even implicitly address demands by the IOC and human rights groups that
women be allowed to compete freely in all athletic disciplines rather than only
ones mentioned in the Qur’an.

The Washington-based Institute of Gulf Affairs, headed by
Saudi dissident Ali al-Ahmed, reported
in 2014 that up to 74 percent of adults and 40 percent of children are believed
to be overweight or obese.

“Women in Saudi Arabia are being killed softly by their
government. Not by public executions or brutal rapes and beatings, but by
day-to-day restrictions imposed on them by their government… It must be
understood that restrictions on women sports and physical activity have nothing
to do with culture or religion, but rather, are fuelled by the ruling elite as
a means to control the population. As long as the Saudi government continues to
claim that such bans are a result of cultural and personal practices, women
will continue to suffer a decline in physical and mental health, as well as
their social, economic and political status,” the report asserted.

It said that the restrictions amounted to “an almost
completely sedentary lifestyle forced on women by the government through a de
facto ban on physical education and sports participation for women that stems
from the Wahhabi imperative of ‘keeping women unseen.’”

Saudi media
have reported that lack of exposure to sun had led to vitamin D deficiency
among 80

percent of Saudi women.

A Human Rights Watch report concluded
last year that “inside Saudi Arabia, widespread discrimination still hampers
access to sports for Saudi women and girls, including in public education.”

The group noted that Saudi women were denied access to state
sports infrastructure and barred from participating in national tournaments and
state-organized sports leagues as well as attending men’s national team matches
as spectators. Women have difficulty accessing the 150 clubs that are regulated
by the General Authority, which organizes tournaments only for men.

Human Rights Watch called on the Saudi government to
demonstrate its sincerity by making physical education for girls’ mandatory in
all state schools; ensuring that women can train to teach physical education in
schools; establishing sports federations for women and allows them to compete
domestically and internationally; supporting women who want to compete in
international sporting competitions on an equal footing with men; and allowing
women to attend sporting events involving men’s national teams.

“Saudi authorities need to address gender discrimination in
sports, not just because it is required by international human rights law, but
because it could have lasting benefits for the health and well-being of the
next generation of Saudi girls,” Human Rights Watch director of global
initiatives Minky Worden said at the time.

Monday, February 13, 2017

Muhammad Hafez Saeed, the recently detained UN and US-designated
global terrorist and one of the world’s most wanted men, plans to register his
group, Jama’at-ud-Dawa (JuD), widely seen as a front for another proscribed
organization, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), as a political party in Pakistan,
according to sources close to the militant.

The move comes days after Mr. Saeed and several other JuD leaders
were put under house arrest in a bid to fend off potential steps against
Pakistan, including inclusion on President Donald J. Trump’s list of countries
whose nationals are temporarily banned from travel to the United States, and punitive
steps by an Asian money laundering watchdog.

In a further effort to fend off pressure, Pakistan’s State
Bank, the country’s monetary authority said it had installed a long overdue
automated system to detect money laundering and terrorism financing.

The
announcement followed last year’s freezing by the bank of the accounts of 2,000
militants – a move described by both analysts and militants as ineffective
because those accounts were not where militants keep their assets.

Meanwhile, the State Department, in a hint of a possibly
tougher line towards Pakistan. refused in recent days to issue a visa to
Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, an Islamic scholar who is deputy chairman of
Pakistan’s Senate and a member of parliament for Jama’at-i-Islami (F), a
political party with close ties to the Taliban. Mr. Haideri was scheduled to
travel to New York to attend a meeting of the International Parliamentary Union
(IPU) at the headquarters of the United Nations.

In response, Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani announced that the
Pakistani parliamentary body would ban its members from travelling to the US
unless it received an explanation for the refusal. The US embassy in Islamabad
has so far refrained from explaining the decision.

JuD sources said its transition to a political party was in
part designed to stop cadres from joining the Islamic State (IS). They said
some 500 JuD activists had left the group to join more militant organizations,
including IS. They said the defections often occurred after the Pakistani
military launches operations against militants in areas like South Waziristan.

Writing in Dawn, Pakistani security analyst Muhammad Amir
Rana argued in favour of allowing JuD to transition into a political party. A
“major challenge for the state is how to neutralise groups that once served its
strategic purpose. The most practised way in a post-insurgency perspective is
to reintegrate them into mainstream society,” Mr. Rana wrote.

“The state can freeze their assets, shut down their charity
and organisational operations, put their leaderships under different schedules
of anti-terrorism laws, try their leaders in courts of law, and, in the worst
case, strip them of their nationality. But will this eliminate the problem?”
Mr. Rana added.

JuD’s application, which since Mr. Saeed’s arrest has
suggested that it would be operating under a new name, Tehreek-e-Azadi-e-Kashmir
(Kashmir Freedom Movement), a practice frequently adopted by militant groups
with government acquiescence, would however in the minds of Western officials
and analysts and some Pakistanis test the sincerity of a recent Pakistani
government crackdown on militants. JuD is believed to have close ties to the
Pakistani military and intelligence. A JuD leader said the group would register
with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) under its own name rather than
under a new one.

Mr. Saeed is believed to be among others responsible for the
2008 attacks on 12 targets in Mumbai, including the Taj Mahal Hotel, a train
station, a café and a Jewish centre. Some 164 people were killed and more than
300 wounded. The US government has a bounty of $10 million on Mr. Saeed for
information leading to his capture. Mr. Saeed, who was once a LeT leader, has
since disassociated himself from the group and denied any link between JuD and
LeT.

A JuD leader said that the group might wait with
registration with the ECP and let the current focus on the group fade away. “We
have decided to go in the politics. However, we’ll let the current phase evolve
after having been put on the government’s watch list before registering,” the
leader said.

JuD sources said the decision to go into politics and
register with the ECP was taken days before last month’s crackdown on the
group.

Some analysts believe that JuD would have to get a court
order to be allowed to register given that its designation by the United
Nations and the United States bans it from conducting business as normal,
including performing financial transactions. ECP registration requires
providing audited accounts.

JuD sources said the group has $19 million in assets that
were in accounts of local officials of the group in various districts in the
country.

JuD is believed to be the largest militant group in
Pakistan. General John Nicholson, the commander of US forces in Afghanistan,
told Congress last week that 20 of the 98 groups designated by the United
States as well as “three violent, extremist organizations” operate in
Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Gen. Johnson was speaking amid mounting pressure on the
Trump administration to adopt a tougher position towards Pakistani support of
militants from a chorus of voices that include the military, members of
Congress from both sides of the aisle, and influential Washington-based think
tanks.

“JuD is the biggest
non-state actor in Pakistan. It has the largest infrastructure in the country,”
Mr. Rana said in an interview. JuD is
believed to have 100 offices across Pakistan. A JuD leader said the group had
trained more than two million cadres and employs 12,000 people.

Azaz Syed is a prominent, award-winning Pakistani
investigative reporter for Geo News and The News. He is the author of the
acclaimed book, The Secrets of Pakistan's War On Al.Qaeda

Friday, February 10, 2017

Pressure on the Trump administration is mounting to adopt a
tougher position towards Pakistani support of militants in Afghanistan as well
as Pakistan itself. The pressure comes from a chorus of voices that include the
US military, members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, and influential
Washington-based think tanks.

Pakistani officials hope that some of Mr. Trump’s key aides
such as Defense Secretary James Mattis and national security advisor Michael
Flynn, both of whom have had long standing dealings with Pakistan during their
military careers, may act as buffers. They argue that the two men appreciate
Pakistan’s problems and believe that trust between the United States and
Pakistan needs to be rebuilt. Mr. Mattis argued in his Senate confirmation
hearing that the United States needed to remain engaged with Pakistan

Pakistani
media reported that Mr. Mattis had expressed support for the Pakistani
military’s role in combatting terrorism during a 20-minute telephone
conversation this week with newly appointed Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar
Javed Bajwa.

Military and Congressional support for a tougher approach
was expressed this week in a US Armed Services Committee hearing on Afghanistan
during which General John Nicholson, the commander of US forces in Afghanistan,
noted that 20 of the 98 groups designated by the United States as well as
“three violent, extremist organizations” operate in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“That is highest concentration of violent, extremist groups in the world,” Gen.
Nicholson said.

In
testimony to the committee, General Nicholson called for “a holistic
review” of US relations with Pakistan, arguing that the Taliban and the Haqqani
network had “no incentive to reconcile” as long as they enjoyed safe haven in
Pakistan.

“External safe haven and support in Pakistan increases the
cost to the United States in terms of lives, time, and money, and it advantages
the enemy with the strategic initiative, allowing them to determine the pace and
venue of conflict from sanctuary,” Gen. Nicholson said.

“Success in Afghanistan will require a candid evaluation of
our relationship with Pakistan… The fact remains that numerous terrorist groups
remain active in Pakistan, attack its neighbours and kill US forces. Put
simply: our mission in Afghanistan is immeasurably more difficult, if not
impossible while our enemies retain a safe haven in Pakistan. These sanctuaries
must be eliminated,” Mr. McCain said.

Mr. Reed added that “Pakistani support for extremist groups
operating in Afghanistan must end if we and Afghanistan are to achieve
necessary levels of security.”

The pronouncements in the committee hearing gave added
significance to policy
recommendations made by a group of prominent experts, including former
Pakistan ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani and former CIA official and
advisor to four US presidents Bruce Riedel, associated with among others The
Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute, the Middle East Institute, the New America
Foundation and Georgetown University.

“The U.S. must stop chasing the mirage of securing change in
Pakistan’s strategic direction by giving it additional aid or military
equipment. It must be acknowledged that Pakistan is unlikely to change its
current policies through inducements alone. The U.S. must also recognize that
its efforts over several decades to strengthen Pakistan militarily have only
encouraged those elements in Pakistan that hope someday to wrest Kashmir from
India through force. The Trump administration must be ready to adopt tougher
measures toward Islamabad that involve taking risks in an effort to evoke
different Pakistani responses,” the experts said in their report.

The experts suggested the Trump administration should wait a
year with designating Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism while it takes
steps to convince Pakistan to fundamentally alter its policies.

Such steps would include warning Pakistan that it could lose
its status as a Major Non-NATO Ally (MNNA); prioritizing engagement with
Pakistan’s civilian leaders rather than with the military and intelligence
services; imposing counterterrorism conditions on U.S. military aid and
reimbursements to Pakistan; and establishing a sequence and timeline for
specific actions Pakistan should take against militants responsible for attacks
outside Pakistan.

There is little to suggest a reversal of policy in recent
Pakistani measures to crackdown on militants including imposing house arrest on
Muhammad Hafez Saeed and other leaders of Jama’at-ud-Dawa (JuD), widely viewed
as a front for the proscribed group, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), and the freezing of
accounts of some 2,000 militants.

Apparently pre-warned that action may be taken against him,
Mr. Saeed suggested during a press conference in Islamabad in mid-January that JuD
may operate under a new name, a practice frequently adopted by militant groups
with government acquiescence. Mr. Saeed said the new name was
Tehreek-e-Azadi-e-Kashmir (Kashmir Freedom Movement). The
Indian Express reported that JuD/LeT continued after Mr. Saeed’s house
arrest to operate training camps in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir.

Various militants and analysts said the accounts targeted were
not where funds were kept. Maulana Muhammad Ahmed Ludhyvani, a leader of the
virulently anti-Shiite group, Ahle Sunnat Wal Juma'at, a successor of
Sipah-e-Sabaha, said in an interview that there were a mere 500,000 rupees
($4,772) in his frozen account.

Persuading Pakistan to alter its ways is likely to prove no
mean task. The government as well as the military and intelligence believe that
the United States favours Indian dominance in the region and has allowed India
to gain influence in Afghanistan. Gen. Nicholson went out of his way in his
testimony to thank India for billions of dollars in aid it was granting
Afghanistan. Many, particularly in the military and intelligence, see the
militants as useful proxies against India.

More vexing is likely the fact that military and
intelligence support for Saudi-like and at times Saudi-backed violent and
non-violent groups with an ultra-conservative, religiously inspired world view
has become part of the fabric of key branches of the state and the government
as well as significant segments of society.

Cracking down on militants, particularly if it is seen to be
on behest of the United States, could provoke as many problems as it offers
solutions. Mounting pressure in Washington on the Trump administration amounts
to the writing on the wall. Pakistani leaders are likely to be caught in a
Catch-22.

The solution might lie in Beijing. Many in Pakistan have
their hopes for economic development pinned on China’s planned $46 billion
investment in Pakistani infrastructure and energy. China, despite having so far
shielded a Pakistani militant in the UN Security Council, is exerting pressure
of its own on Pakistan to mend its ways. As a result, Pakistan is one area
where China and the US could find common cause.

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

China, at the behest of Pakistan, has prevented the United Nations from listing
a prominent Pakistani militant as a globally designated terrorist. China’s
protection of Masood Azhar, who is believed to have close ties to Pakistani
intelligence and the military, raises questions about the sincerity of a
Pakistani crackdown on militants as well as China’s willingness to use its
influence to persuade Pakistan to put an end to the use of militants as
proxies.

The United States, Britain, France and India have long
wanted the United Nations Security Council Sanctions Committee to designate Mr.
Azhar on the grounds that his organization, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), has already
been proscribed by Pakistan as well as the international body.

Mr. Azhar, a fighter in the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan
and an Islamic scholar who graduated from a Deobandi madrassah, Darul Uloom
Islamia Binori Town in Karachi, the alma mater of numerous Pakistani militants,
is believed to have been responsible for an attack last year on India’s Pathankot
Air Force Station. The militants, dressed in Indian military uniforms fought a
14-hour battle against Indian security forces that only ended when the last
attacker was killed. Mr. Azhar was briefly detained after the attack and has
since gone underground.

Mr. Azhar, who was freed from Indian prison in 1999 in
exchange for the release of passengers of a hijacked Indian Airlines flight, is
also believed to be responsible for an attack in 2001 on the Indian parliament
in New Delhi that brought Pakistan and India to the brink of war.

JeM despite being banned continues to publicly raise funds
and recruit fighters in mosques. Indian
journalist Praveen Swami quoted Mufti Abdul Rauf Asghar, Mr. Azhar’s elder
brother, as telling worshippers gathered in a mosque in Punjab in late January
to commemorate a militant who had been killed in India: “Islam is a world power
and cannot be destroyed. Whoever tries to destroy it will be destroyed himself.
Jihad is the most important obligation of our faith.”

Pakistani indulgence of JeM and Chinese connivance in
preventing Mr. Azhar, a portly bespectacled son of a Bahawalpur religious
studies teacher and author
of a four-volume treatise on jihad as well as books with titles like Forty
Diseases of the Jews, from being designated has raised eyebrows in both
Pakistani and Chinese policy circles.

Opening a window on apparent differences between civilian
and military branches of government,

Pakistani Foreign Minister Aizaz Chaudhry last
year reportedly
warned a gathering of political, military and intelligence leaders that
Pakistan risked international isolation if it failed to crack down on militant
groups. Mr. Chaudhry noted that Pakistan’s closest ally, China with its massive
$46 billion investment in Pakistani infrastructure as part of its One Belt, One
Road initiative, was increasingly questioning the wisdom of protecting Mr.
Azhar at Pakistan’s behest.

Chinese vice foreign minister Li Baodong last year defended
his country’s repeated shielding of Mr. Azhar by suggesting that attempts to
designate the JeM amounted to using counter-terrorism for political goals. “China
is opposed to all forms of terrorism. There should be no double standards on
counter-terrorism. Nor should one pursue own political gains in the name of
counter-terrorism,” Mr.
Li said.

Chinese policy analysts with close government ties squirm when
asked about China’s repeated veto of efforts to designate Mr. Azhar. The
analysts suggest that the Pakistani military and intelligence’s use of proxies
like Mr. Azhar in their dispute with India over Kashmir has sparked debate
about the wisdom of sinking $46 billion into Pakistan.

China’s hopes that the investment in infrastructure would
persuade the Pakistani military and intelligence to seriously back away from
using militant proxies have so far remain unfulfilled.

The investment is part of China’s larger effort to link
Eurasia to China through infrastructure. It expects that the linkage will spur
economic development both in Pakistan and China’s troubled north-western
province of Xinjiang where China’s harsh measure‎s against
the cultural practices of the Uighurs have sought to pre-empt Islamist
violence.

Responding to the civilian government’s effort to crackdown
on Jaish-e-Mohammad, including last year’s freezing of its accounts by the
State Bank of Pakistan, Mr. Azhar defended the group’s contribution to
Pakistan’s defence of Kashmir as well as the jihadist movement at large.

“When we entered the tent of the jihadist movement. it had
no branch in Kashmir, nor was there lightning in Iraq or Syria. There were just
two fronts, in Afghanistan and Palestine, one of them active and one of them
shut. We have watched as the jihad we befriended grew from a glowing ember into
the sun; from a small spring into a river, and now, as it is about to become a
great ocean,” Mr. Azhar wrote in the group’s magazine.

A BBC
investigative documentary last year traced jihadist thinking in Britain to
a month-long visit to Britain in 1993 by Mr. Azhar, who at the time headed
Pakistani militant group Harakat ul Mujahideen.

Mr. Azhar gave 40 lectures during his fund-raising and
recruitment tour and was feted by Islamic scholars from Britain’s largest
mosque network. More and more scholars joined his entourage as he toured the
country before moving on to Saudi Arabia. A passionate and emotive speaker,
women reportedly
took off their jewellery and handed it to Azhar after listening to his
speeches.

“It was Azhar, a Pakistani cleric, who was the first to
spread the seeds of modern jihadist militancy in Britain – and it was through
South Asian mosques belonging to the Deobandi movement that he did it,” says BBC reporter Innes Bowen.

Indian analysts believe that shielding Mr. Azhar serves
China’s purpose of keeping India preoccupied with the threat of political
violence. China’s is moreover grateful for successful Pakistani efforts to stop
the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (IOC) that groups 57 Muslim nations
from criticizing Chinese policy in Xinjiang. Finally, the analysts say,
shielding Mr. Azhar constitutes retaliation for India’s hosting of the Dalai
Lama.

In defending Mr. Azhar with one eye on India, China is
walking a fine line that threatens to undermine its massively funded policy
objectives in Pakistan, a country that for years has been reeling from
militancy that has fuelled sectarianism at home and created militant groups
that at times have turned on their Pakistani masters.

By doing so, China risks allowing militancy to further
fester in a country where militancy is not confined to small groups but has
been woven into the fabric of significant segments of society. Attempting to
heal what is an open wound requires not only economic development but also a Pakistani
and Chinese counter-terrorism strategy that refrains from making politically
opportunistic compromises.

Sporticos

Ads

Soccer Results

The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer does not promote, link to or provide videos from any online sources who distribute illegal streaming content over the Internet with domains registered in the United States of America

Top 100 Soccer Sites

Subscribe To

Subscribe by Email

About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile